Ellen Hovde, Documentarian Who Co-Directed ‘Grey Gardens,’ Dies at 97

Documentarian Ellen Hovde, best known for co-directing the groundbreaking film “Grey Gardens” with the Maysles brothers, has died at age 97.

Hovde’s February 16 passing was confirmed last week by her children, Tessa Huxley and Mark Trevenen Huxley, who said the cause was Alzheimer’s disease, and shared July 11 with The New York Times.

“Grey Gardens” was released in 1975 and followed the reclusive relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Edie Beale and her mother Edith Beale, who lived in East Hampton, New York in a deteriorating mansion. The film was co-directed by Hovde, Albert Maysles, and David Maysles. Hovde began working with the Maysles in the 1960s as a contributing editor on “Salesman,” their documentary made with Charlotte Zwerin about traveling Bible salesmen, and also worked as an editor on their Rolling Stones documentary “Gimme Shelter.” She was a credited director with the Maysles on their artist portrait “Christo’s Valley Curtain,” released in 1974. The film received an Oscar nomination for best documentary short.

“Grey Gardens” was named to the National Film Registry in 2010 and restored by Criterion in 2015. “We didn’t remove any of the raccoon stuff. We left the smells so you can still use your imagination as to what that home was like,” Lee Kline, technical director at The Criterion Collection, told IndieWire at the time of maintaining the texture of the grainy 16mm original.

“Grey Gardens” spurred a 2009 Emmy-winning HBO film starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, for which Barrymore tapped into a Method acting style. A Broadway musical based on the documentary also ran in 2006 and won three Tony Awards.

Director Hovde spoke candidly about “Grey Gardens” in a Film Quarterly interview in 1978, revealing, “Big Edie didn’t really want to do it at first. Little Edie did. In the months when there was a lot of controversy about it, it was Mrs. Beale and Edie who called us and said, ‘You know there has been this criticism — don’t worry. It’s alright. We know that it is an honest picture. We believe in it. We don’t want you to feel upset.’ That was their attitude, and they never wavered from that.”

Hovde and frequent collaborator, editor Muffie Meyer, went on to found Middlemarch Films, which made a series of documentary features and videos. The company also produced the PBS documentary series “Benjamin Franklin,” which won the Emmy for outstanding nonfiction special.

In addition to her children, Hovde is survived by two grandchildren.